John Clayworth Spencer Wells (1907 – 2000) was born in London on the 27 th July 1907. He went on to study medicine at the University College and Hospital, from which he graduated in 1930. During his student years he also took evening art classes at St Martins. In 1927 he exhibited a painting in the Daily Express Young Artists exhibition at the Royal Society of British Artists. Wells also briefly attended Stanhope Forbes Newly School of Painting and at the same was introduced to Ben and Winifred Nicholson by a cousin. John Wells worked as a doctor on the Isles of Scilly for nine years before deciding to paint on a full time basis after the Second World War, which he spent as a Admiralty Surgeon and Agent to the islands. This allowed him to make periodic visits to Nicholson and Hepworth who introduced Wells to Naum Gabo. Gabo was to become a major influence on his output. Even before his decision to give up medicine in favour of painting and move to mainland Cornwall, Wells was included in the exhibition New Movement in Art: Contemporary Work in England held at the London Museum in 1942. 1945 to 1955 was without doubt his most prolific period and he was at the centre of artistic development in St Ives, co-founding the Crypt Group in 1946 and the Penworth Society of Arts in 1949, and worked alongside Terry Frost, Peter Lanyon and Barbara Hepworth, whose assistant he was in 1949 – 1951. After meeting Naum Gabo in 1940, Wells developed an interest in contructive work, producing mainly 3 dimensional constructions and Collages.
He was attracted to the scientific approach of Constructivism, in which he was able to incorporate his knowledge gained from his medical practise. His paintings developed slowly from experimenting with collages and are of modest proportions.He was also influenced by his immediate surroundings. After deciding to pursue art as a full time carreer he renewed his study of geometry and mathematical systems of proportion. Many paintings of this period are characterised by a strict division of the canvas into sections, which formed the basic structure of his composition. He was also influenced by classical music and took inspiration from natural forms like shells and crystals. From 1948 onwards Wells increasingly spent time exploring the landscape and his painting reflect his interest in the forms that make up his environment, especially the geology of west Cornwall and his fascination with the flight of birds and their relationship with the static landscape. Towards the end of the 1950s John Wells loosened his style and executed a series of larger works. He was apparently dissatisfied with the coherence of those paintings and by the end of 1960 he abandoned his immediate attachment to landscape and returned to strict geometrical structures. John Wells took part in many group exhibitions, for example at the Lefevre Gallery in London. The Tate Gallery St Ives held a retrospective of his work in 1998. Other examples of his work can be found in many museums and galleries around the world, including the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Musem in London, Columbia University, New York, and the Othenberg Museum in Sweden.
